is the male’s role to work in the community and control the economic life of the family and to mete out the physical and financial punishments and rewards, and the female’s role to provide the emotional warmth associated with motherhood while under the economic rule of the male. Here is where the relationship of superordination-subordination, or superior-inferior, or master-slave is first learned and accepted as "natural." -John Hodge: Feminist Theory P.36 Philosophical definitions of women, written about by male philosophers, share warped views that were the result of the cultural times and places from which they originated. The view that women are somewhat "less" than men in many respects, began with the philosophies of Aristotle in the fourth century BC. Since Aristotle was one of the most influential philosophers of ancient Greece, he had a widespread impact on the thinking of many people. Christian theologians in ancient Europe rediscovered his theories. Aristotle believed that a woman’s part in conception was to supply the container in which the seed, planted by the male, grows. Aristotle said, "We should look on the female as being as it were a deformity, though one which occurs in the ordinary course of nature." Although we know now that Aristotle was mistaken in his biological interpretation of the female gender, his philosophies had a long-term impact on the perception of women from a non-biological perspective. A few philosophers, such as Plato (427-347 BC), Condorcet (1743-1794), and John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) had opinions that opposed Aristotle and inherently supported women’s rights, but females are still struggling to prove to the opposite sex that we are not "defective men." In fact, women were seen as inferior since the time of Aristotle and throughout Freud’s lifetime because they did not have penises. It seems that it could also be argued that men lack the clitoris and instead have an e...
